Echo cancellers are essential components to a telecommunications network. Echo cancellers enable voice communications to be clearer especially with talking paths existing over very long distances. Usually, echo cancellers are located with or near switching equipment and are connected to circuits that interface to the switching equipment. Literally, thousands of echo cancellers may exist with connections to the switching equipment.
A problem with echo cancellers is that they can be difficult to maintain depending on the size of the switching equipment. Each echo canceller has to be configured correctly to reduce or rid the “talking path” of echo during a voice conversation. As an aside, there are usually three sources of echo: hybrid or network echo, handset acoustic coupling, and ambient acoustic echo. Unfortunately, it is possible to mis-configure or change the configuration of the echo canceller thereby causing echo to be heard during a voice conversation.
An echo canceller's configuration may be set when it is initially installed. Echo cancellers have several parameters that may be adjusted based on the operating environment. In many circumstances, large numbers of echo cancellers may have parameters set to the same values. This is possible for a number of reason such as the trunk circuits between the switching offices have the same signaling type; the distances between switching offices are within a certain range; or the timing values over the trunk circuits are similar. Other parameters affect the configuration of echo cancellers and may be set to the same values also. However, the alternative is true as well. Some echo cancellers have distinct requirements which may require that they have special values set for their parameters. These special values are due to the unique operating conditions for the particular echo canceller. If the distinct parameters are small in number, a service provider may separately maintain these sets of echo cancellers and maintain their parameters in an identifiable file or database.
When an echo is heard in a voice communication, it may be deemed an echo canceller failure. Echo cancellers may fail for a number of reasons including a device failure, a lack of echo canceller for the circuit, or echo canceller options set incorrectly. As mentioned above, incorrect options may be due to mis-configuring the echo canceller during installation or later changing the configuration of the echo canceller.
With a large number of echo cancellers, the job can be very tedious in keeping echo cancellers configured properly. The work involves manually evaluating each echo canceller to insure proper operation. A worker has to access the configuration data of the echo canceller and make a comparison of the parameters to a standard set of parameters from either a pre-defined configuration, a model echo canceller, or a template. With thousands of echo cancellers operating at one switching office, the maintenance work can be laborious and long.
It would be beneficial to have a solution that could automatically verify the configurations of numerous echo cancellers, update the configurations of those echo cancellers that have been configured improperly or are causing problems, and report the status of the echo cancellers. This solution could improve customer satisfaction by reducing the delay in finding and resolving problems with echo cancellers. It may also reduce costs in the manual efforts to find and resolve problems associated with the echo cancellers.